A locally based digital creative agency that designed websites and developed mobile apps closed its doors Wednesday.
“Today marks the end of something I’m choosing to look back on as a wonderful journey,” Jamey Erickson, owner and creative director of Minneapolis-based Sevnthsin, wrote on the company’s website.
Sevnthsin was founded in 2005, and it was a relatively small shop whose annual revenue totaled about $1.3 million—not quite enough to rank it among the state’s 25 largest Web development and design firms. But its client list included major companies and organizations such as Target Corporation, Health Partners, J.C. Penney, and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“We found ourselves in a perfect storm of circumstances,” Erickson told Twin Cities Business in a Wednesday phone interview.
Sevnthsin found itself in a “financial hole” after a major client lost funding and was unable to pay its bills; meanwhile, additional business that Sevnthsin hoped to perform during the remainder of 2013 was either pushed back to next year or fell through altogether, Erickson said.
The decision to close the agency’s doors was made over the weekend, and the firm’s seven employees were notified on Monday.
In his online announcement of Sevnthsin’s closure, Erickson included links to the LinkedIn profiles of his former employees, saying that “some of this city’s brightest minds are now on the hunt for work” and encouraging other businesses to “please hire them.”
Sevnthsin had recently moved into a redeveloped multi-use development in Northeast Minneapolis called The Broadway. That complex is anchored by 612 Brew, a brewery.
“I’ve always poured every ounce of my being into this, and while I’ve never been a stranger to tough times, this year has proven to be the most difficult of them all,” Erickson wrote online. “That being said, I’ve never been more proud of the work we’ve done here and it breaks my heart to end this all so abruptly. We’ve simply just run out of time.”
Erickson told Twin Cities Business that he is currently wrapping up outstanding work for Sevnthsin clients.
This article is reprinted in partnership with Twin Cities Business.
